Tyro: Alien Adoption Agency #3
Tyro
Alien Adoption Agency #3
Tasha Black
13th Story Press
Copyright © 2021 by 13th Story Press
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
13th Story Press
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Swarthmore, PA 19081
13thStoryPress@gmail.com
Cover designed by Sylvia Frost of The Book Brander
Contents
Tasha Black Starter Library
About Tyro
Tyro
1. Phoebe
2. Tyro
3. Phoebe
4. Tyro
5. Phoebe
6. Phoebe
7. Phoebe
8. Tyro
9. Phoebe
10. Phoebe
11. Tyro
12. Phoebe
13. Tyro
14. Phoebe
15. Tyro
16. Tyro
17. Tyro
18. Phoebe
19. Tyro
20. Phoebe
21. Phoebe
22. Phoebe
23. Tyro
24. Tyro
25. Phoebe
26. Phoebe
Tolstoy (Sample)
1. Anna
2. Leo
Tasha Black Starter Library
About the Author
One Percent Club
Tasha Black Starter Library
Packed with steamy shifters, mischievous magic, billionaire superheroes, and plenty of HEAT, the Tasha Black Starter Library is the perfect way to dive into Tasha's unique brand of Romance with Bite!
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About Tyro
Phoebe has nothing but her secrets. Her alien protector is determined to lay them bare.
Phoebe arrives on the moon of Clotho with a trunk full of secrets and an imagination filled with preconceived notions about life on the frontier. She’s more than ready to scrap and fight for her own piece of farmland, and a future for the little one she is adopting. When her new land turns out to be underwater, and the baby shows up in the strapping arms of an Invicta dragon-guard, Phoebe doubles down on her promise to herself to live free, or die trying.
Tyro never asked to be made guardian to a baby. But little Atlas has his heart, and he is shocked to find that the baby’s adopted mother has his soul. His inner dragon roars triumphant, but his human side must fight to win her over. If only the headstrong little Terran would slow down long enough to let him claim her before mad desire pushes his restraint to the limit.
When the farm is threatened, the two must work together to protect Atlas’s future. But then Phoebe’s past comes back to find her, and she has a decision to make that could derail even the best laid plans. Tyro is willing to bet the farm on their future together. Will Phoebe run, or will she decide to land herself an alien?
If you like strong women, hunky aliens, wild adventures, steamy sensual scenes, and happily-ever-afters, then you’ll love the world of Stargazer!
Alien Adoption Agency is a Stargazer Alien Series – read them all:
-Noxx
-Kade
-Tyro
Tyro
1
Phoebe
Phoebe had a secret.
She held it close to her heart as she hugged her friends goodbye, clinging to her secret, and the handle of her antique trunk, with the same white-knuckled determination.
“I don’t know how I’ll do this without you and Luna,” she told Aurora, embracing her friend with the arm that wasn’t clutching the trunk.
Aurora hugged her back, hard - she was surprisingly strong.
“What ho, ladies,” a deep voice boomed out in an indecorous manner.
She turned to the source with a deliberate slowness, so as not to encourage such a familiar tone. She was greeted with a not entirely unpleasant view of the muscular, green guard who carried her newly adopted son.
“Atlas wants his mama to find her new home right away so she can give him some supper,” he told her, smiling in a teasing manner that made her feel warm all over, and then angry.
Atlas.
Who would name an infant for the god who was supposed to have held up old Earth on his shoulders? The only thing that chubby baby was going to hold up was her plans for the future.
She glanced at Aurora, who up until now had always been the life of the party.
Aurora was gazing at the golden servant who held her own new child. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
“Are you going to be okay?” Phoebe heard herself ask.
It was a monumentally stupid question. Aurora was an undercover rebel leader with an intergalactic bounty on her head. Disappearing on this frontier moon would probably be the easiest thing she had ever done.
“Of course,” Aurora said, turning to Phoebe with a smile. “If you get too lonely for me, just send up a flare or something. We’ll get settled in and find each other again, I’m sure.”
But Aurora’s blue gaze went to the horizon and Phoebe saw the moon through her friend’s eyes for a moment.
It was vast.
And it was unlikely they would ever see each other again.
But there wasn’t really time to argue. Aurora was already heading down the hillside to board a pretty, blue wing-steed drawn coach with her baby and its golden guard.
The third adoptive mother of their little group, Luna, had disappeared into the woods a few minutes ago on the back of a moose with antlers that looked like trees.
Surely, Phoebe’s own conveyance would arrive soon, so she could get started with her own new life.
Her two friends knew that Phoebe had grown up on a farm. It was clear they had their own vision of what that meant - a small farmhouse full of children in shabby clothing, a dusty plot of land out of which wizened parents had to coax a sickly crop.
But that was a long way from Phoebe’s actual life.
Luna and Aurora were both from Terra-4, a planet so poor it was almost a universal joke.
The very first Terra was almost an heirloom planet, lavished with tourism dollars from Terrans all over the galaxy wanting to taste the closest thing to “old home”.
But the other lower Terras were nightmarish. They had been terraformed by early methods and had none of the newer technology and resources of the later Terras because of it.
When Phoebe had mentioned life back on ’12, the other two had teased her so much for being rich that she hadn’t had the heart to tell them that she was from Terra 212, not Terra 12.
Life on the family camellia plantation on Terra 212 had been easy and pleasant. Phoebe had hosted tea parties and book club meetings in an elegant mansion overlooking the fields, where an army of droids harvested the fragrant blossoms under her father’s gentle direction.
She made the seasonal pilgrimages to town with her father, to drink the local brew and negotiate the sale of the crop.
Otherwise, she lived a quiet, cushioned life with little excitement.
She had planned to stay on with her daddy forever. Her older brother had already married and produced the requisite two grandchildren, so there was no pressure on Phoebe to find a husband.
Phoebe pictured herself growing old in the mansion, reading the latest books, and smelling the camellias, and never answering to any man but her sweet, single father, who had raised her to be every bit as independent as he was.
But when the drought came, it brought unexpected problems.
&
nbsp; Problems that could be so easily solved by the right marriage. And after all, the boy from the farm next door with the river running through it had always liked Phoebe.
Her father had given her a beautiful life and never asked anything of her. So when he mentioned that Cash Donovan from next door might come calling, what was she supposed to do?
Cash was attractive enough, with that shock of dark hair, devilish blue eyes, and breeches so tight they left little to the imagination. There were worse alternatives, to be sure.
It had been a whirlwind courtship.
But the night before the wedding, Phoebe’s best friend Lottie had come to her window.
Lottie told her that Cash had been sleeping with the widow Jones for years, and now he was telling everyone that he was only marrying Phoebe for her land.
And though Phoebe was really only marrying Cash for his water, the whole thing was a horrifying affront.
She had packed a few bags and snuck out of the house and down the country road to town, catching a hovercraft to the nearest station and then buying a ticket for the first shuttle off-planet.
In the first-class lounge, she browsed the message board. There were advertisements for the high-end luggage sources, and plenty of reminders to luxuriate at destination hotels.
And there was one modest invitation to interview with the Alien Adoption Agency, for an opportunity to parent a child in exchange for a plot of fertile farmland.
I could be like my father, Phoebe had thought to herself. A single parent with a beautiful farm to tend, and no one to answer to but myself and the land.
She had sent her communication before she boarded the shuttle. And the Alien Adoption Agency had been waiting for her on the other side when she got off.
The intake process had been strange at best, but here she was.
Ready to start a new life.
“Are you ready?” the enormous green man asked her with a big, dumb grin.
The baby in his arms chuckled.
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “Sure, where’s the coach?”
“There is no coach,” the man replied. “We’re just heading down to the lake.”
She glanced at the murky water below. “That’s a long walk.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “We’d better get moving if we want to get there before dark.”
She let go of the trunk handle and indicated that he should take it.
“Atlas might be a little shy at first,” the man said, walking toward her with the baby.
“That’s fine,” she said, turning and leading the way down the hill. “I don’t intend to be too hands-on until he’s older.”
She supposed that it would fall on her to carry her own handbag, since the big man hadn’t had the foresight to book a proper conveyance. That was fine with Phoebe. Her bag held the small camellia plant she’d smuggled onboard with her as a token of her old life. The flower was far too delicate to entrust to this brute of a porter.
When she didn’t hear his footsteps behind her right away, she turned back.
He was wearing a surprised and amused expression.
“What’s in here, unprocessed electrum rods?” he asked, picking up her case with a grunt as his expansive muscles rippled with the effort.
He promptly began chuckling at his own joke before she had a chance to answer.
She was relieved to see it was just a typical chauvinistic joke about a woman having heavy luggage. In truth, he had no idea how close he had come with his guess. Only what she was keeping in the trunk was far more valuable.
She headed down the hill without further comment, and the man followed this time.
The wind whipping off the lake was brisk and actually quite pleasant. Phoebe found herself admiring the green and blue landscape of the lush moon as they walked.
“The forest is beautiful, but it’s very dangerous,” the man pointed out. “By the way, my name is Tyro.”
“What’s so dangerous about the forest?” she asked, ignoring his blatant attempt at permission to call her by her first name.
“Only the normal things during the day,” he said. “But at night there’s a sort of cleansing - first the piranha pigs clear the surface and then the under-cats burrow up to eat anything too big for the pigs, and of course, the pigs themselves.”
“Under-cats?” she echoed.
“Sort of like Terran tigers, but without fur or eyes,” he said. “But don’t worry, it just means you have to be really careful after dark if you’re outside the town and beach area.”
“I’ll be living on a farm,” she reminded him. “How will this impact my crops?”
“Oh, it won’t,” he said, grinning at her.
The baby chose that moment to let loose with a string of strange sounds and motions of his chubby hands.
“Are you excited to go live on a farm?” Tyro asked him.
And though the man’s voice was so deep and loud it made Phoebe’s organs reverberate, the baby was not at all frightened, and instead banged him on the head approvingly with a small arm.
“Aww, thanks, buddy,” Tyro said with a satisfaction Phoebe found irritating.
“Isn’t this the lake?” she asked, pointing at the rocky shore.
“Yes, we’re on the other side, though,” Tyro said. “Past the village.”
She buttoned her lip in displeasure and walked on.
The village was small at least. Walking through it wouldn’t take too long.
The stone streets were dusty, but the little houses with their terra cotta style roofing were rather charming, in a frontier homestead sort of way.
Along the main street, vendors stood under tents, offering their wares.
She scrutinized each stand as she passed, knowing that she would be doing business with some of these shop keepers one day soon. The owners with the neatest tents and best selections would be able to pay the highest price for her crops.
“Are you hungry?” Tyro offered, clearly misreading her interest in the stalls.
Her stomach chose that moment to grumble.
“Say no more,” he laughed. “Now let’s see, I think this will be the best one.”
He pointed at one of the more modest tents.
“He hardly has anything on display,” Phoebe protested.
“That means he doesn’t have to advertise,” Tyro told her. “Come on.”
He marched into the tent, leaving her no choice but to follow.
She listened while he dickered with the shopkeeper, the two of them negotiating in a friendly way until they came to some sort of an understanding.
The man wandered into the back and came out again a few minutes later with a huge sack.
“Okay, princess, I’ve only got two hands,” Tyro said, arching an eyebrow. “What do you want to carry? The baby, the groceries or your trunk?”
She blinked at him in unhappy surprise, then grabbed the sack.
The shopkeeper’s rusty laugh cut the air.
“Come on,” she said crisply to Tyro.
“Cheers,” Tyro said to the shopkeeper, giving a little salute.
They headed back onto the street.
The sun had begun to dip in the sky, and only one or two other customers were walking around. Phoebe recalled reading about the significantly shorter solar cycle on Clotho. That would take some getting used to.
Despite her feelings about being put to work hauling the goods, she had to admit that the food in the sack smelled incredible. She peeked inside to see some sort of baked goods wrapped in paper and a couple of pounds of unrecognizable produce.
“There’s no milk,” she said.
“There are cells in the icebox, don’t worry,” he told her. “That was all set up for us ahead of time.”
She nodded, satisfied. That made sense. Of course the droids would have been programmed to ensure that she had a full larder. She was curious to see exactly what kind of equipment had been provided for her. She was prepared to be roughing it this far from the inner rings,
which probably meant only a small contingent of older-model droids. But she had always been resourceful, and she was determined to make do.
They walked along in peaceful silence, passing a general store and then a saloon, each bearing posters for something called the Sheriff’s Cup, which appeared to be some sort of local sporting contest. She made a mental note to stay clear of town on that day. There didn’t seem to be a bookstore, Phoebe noticed sadly.
A woman in a scarlet gown, with long, pale tentacles streaming from her head sauntered out of the saloon as they passed, her eyes fixed on Tyro.
Phoebe felt a pang of sudden anger, shocked by how much it felt like jealousy.
Ugh, he’s a guard, not a suitor. Chill out, Phoebe.
“Aren’t you a big strong one?” the woman sang out to Tyro, wiggling her hips.
“Yes, thank you for noticing,” he replied politely, looking at her eyes, not her bottom.
“I might even give you a discount,” she tried again gamely.
“Great,” he said. “What are you selling?”
The woman’s eyes widened slightly and her tentacles fell flat to her shoulders.
Phoebe couldn’t blame her disbelief. How dense could this guy be?
“Whatever you want,” the woman replied in a sultry tone, eyeing him in a way that he surely couldn’t misunderstand.
Phoebe saw the instant that Tyro recognized what was going on.